


Selene

by JenCforCarolina



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, destiny ghost, destiny guardian, destiny titan, destiny warlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not every Guardian welcomes the task of defending humanity.<br/>The rebirth of an Exo Warlock</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Warlock

**Author's Note:**

> [Find it on tumblr here](http://jencforcarolina.tumblr.com/post/110396901848/selene)
> 
>  
> 
> This ones a bit of an old one, one of my first. Not the very best work but something to....archive... so to speak.

The first time she saw a Fallen Vandal it killed her.

The city was under attack. Everyone was running, left, right, somewhere, nowhere, just running.

A human woman tripped her, kicked her in the chest, screamed in her face, “This is why we needed you! They’re here and now we’re all going to die because you were too selfish to protect us!”

“Fight your own fucking battles!” She screamed back, but the woman never heard because her head was blown off by a blue bolt of plasma.

She scrambled up and kept running.

Find him. He will protect me. Find him.

It became her mantra, the beat she ran to. Her body would not give out for a long time, it was her mind she had to convince.

She saw him across a square, across a crowd of people. He did not see her. She screamed his name. He looked.

A dreg leapt from a building and drove its knives into his body.

She did not scream. She ran.

She ran for three days, leaving that city behind her, pausing only briefly to let the frigid air cool her drives. She knew she was being hunted. She didn’t know where she was going.

She paused, panting. It was an organic motion, that was frustratingly useful for mechanicals as well, when circuits needed to be cooled immediately.

She heard it, boots on rocks. She turned around. It gave her the fluid, gurgling courtesy of uncloaking- becoming visible again so she knew what it was that killed her.

Two blades pierced her chest, came out the back. Essential functions were severed from her core processors.

She died.

* * *

The second time she saw a Fallen Vandal, it brought her to life.

Her optics blinked on, and the Vandal blinked its eyes. She registered its surprise before she registered what it was.

But then she remembered who the enemy was, and it did too.

It roared and raised its blades. She thrust out her hand in an attempt to defend herself.

The Vandal was swept off its feet. Her optics tracked it as it flew backwards, its skull slamming into a boulder.

She cooled and processed, allowing her mind to slow down. She looked at her hand as if it were alien. And the gloves, where did she get those gloves?

“Good job.”

Her head snapped up and swiveled, searching for the unfamiliar voice.

“Right here.” A mechanical hum. Mechanical voice. Geometric mechanical body. It buzzed over her shoulder and settled in front of her. Its single eye flashed greetings and she flashed confusion back. It made no acknowledgment.

“What are you?” Her optics were acting strange, painting a soft green outline around its form. She glanced around her. The vandal’s corpse was painted a muted orange, and it was fading out. She reached up to touch her head and her knuckles clanked on something else. A helmet. She didn’t wear helmets. She didn’t wear gloves. She didn’t wear tunic-like cloaks and those were _not_ her boots.

“I’m your Ghost.” She returned her attention to the thing- the Ghost.

“A ghost. Am I dead?” She flashed amusement then realized her throat was covered. She made a huffing laugh, resorting to organic communication.

“You were. I fixed that though.” Proud.

Frown. Confused. Remembered she had to voice it.

“How do you mean?” She regarded this thing that claimed it was hers.

“I have searched a very long time to find my match. And then I found you. You are light capable, and we are compatible. I was able to revive you from death. You are a Guardian. You are my Guardian.”

“Guardian.” She tested the word, sensed it’s weight. “So what, do I like, protect you then?”

“Not me. A Guardian’s duty is to fight the darkness and protect the City, and the last of humanity that resides in it.”

She clawed at her neck, finding the latch for the helmet and furiously pulling it off in order to convey her emotions properly. She glared down the pathetic little cube-ball thing, cycling indignation, betrayed, disgust, rage.

“Are you fucking kidding me. I avoided conscription for ten years,” she seethed. “Those goddamn humans tried to enslave us, tried to make us fight their battles for them. I died when they wouldn’t stand up and defend themselves and their own damn city. Now you tell me I have literally been brought back from the dead to protect these fuckers!? Let them die off for all I care!”

The Ghost narrowed it’s top pieces over it’s eye, making an unsettlingly organic expression of confusion and sadness.

“I did not expect you to feel that way.” It spun it’s geometry around it’s round core. “Nonetheless, the City is the last safe place on earth for anyone. We need to get you there. Perhaps then you can speak to the Vanguard. They can explain more about a Guardian’s duties. It’s either that or be hunted by Fallen for all eternity.”

She searched for an alternative, any excuse she could make to not go back to that city, but the Ghost was right, her choice was clear. Get back to relative safety, or die out here. Again.

“Fine.” She relented, turning to trudge back to her former home. “Let’s get going.”

“The other way.” The Ghost flew in front of her, blocking her path more by principle than by mass.

“No.” She replied with a tone of forced patience. “I know the way back.”

“We aren’t going to that village. That is where you came from all those years ago? No that is not the City.”

“Alright. Fine. What city is this then?”

“The City. The Last City. Beneath the Traveler.”

That was enough to give her pause, to leave her speechless. There had always been rumors throughout the years of a City of peace, of safety, guarded by the bringer of the Golden Age.

“It’s true? The Traveler still protects a handful of people?”

“A billion or so. An accurate census is difficult.” The Ghost replied, then said again. “It’s this way.”

She followed it without hesitation. When it had promised safety, she hadn’t realized it meant true safety. A haven. The City.

“You had better put your helmet on. It will be a long walk, and the other Fallen from that Vandal’s patrol will be coming this way.”

She complied, noticing this time the odd symbols and bars lighting up the display. She supposed she would figure those out as she went. “Lead on.”

The Ghost vanished in a shower of what looked like stardust, but not before she registered it’s subtle relief.

“I’m still here.” It’s voice flowed through the helmet’s audio. “Head west, I’ll get waypoints going on your HUD. We’re going to try for the Cosmodrome. I came from that way, theres a few other spaceports between here and there. If we can find a ship in one of those, we’ll take it. If not, we push on to Old Russia. We can probably get a ride with another Guardian, the Vanguard has been putting a lot of pressure on Fallen in that area lately.”

She shrugged, unable to add anything to the plan. “You’re the expert. Just tell me where to go, Coach.”

A white diamond appeared on her display. She started walking.

“If you’re going to give me a name, can I at least have yours?”

“I hadn’t meant it as a nickname.” She admitted. “But if you wanted that…”

“I like it. We are going to be together a while. Hopefully.”

She huffed an organic laugh.

They had named her Sentinel-12. It was seared in her mind, wired into every inch of her so she wouldn’t forget it. She didn’t like it, so she had added a layer to that, reinforcing it, but in a way she liked. She had nicknamed herself a long time ago.

She smiled. “You can call me Selene.”


	2. Ghost

They didn’t find a ship. They did find a gun.

It was as old as she was and she was lucky it worked, or so her ghost told her. It would be likely to jam and she probably should avoid using it unless they got cornered.

She pulled it off a skeleton, debated kicking it, but wasn’t sure if it was human or Awoken, and she had no problem with the Awoken. In the end she decided to just respect a dead creature and gently lifted the rifle from crumbling finger bones.

Her ghost walked her through it’s use as she searched the rest of the complex. It was the first buildings they had come to since setting out four days prior. It had become evident in the first hangar that the ships here were too old, beyond any hope of repair.

They pressed on, making better time as they passed into higher altitude. Selene’s pauses were less frequent, the air keeping her cool despite the rapid pace.

She carried the all but useless rifle. It had a sort of reassuring weight, somehow a comfort despite her probable ineptitude with it. She had technically understood everything Coach had explained to her about it, but knowledge and experience were very different, and the only weapon Selene had ever fired was a very small hand cannon. She had put a bullet in a bag of rice once, just to prove to herself she could do it. The kick had pulled some wires in her wrist, and could have snapped it at the joint if the gun had been more powerful, despite the strength of her artificial body. Intellectually, she knew she had probably been holding it wrong, but her pride had said the weapon was defective, and she had tucked it away and never retrieved it.

They had traveled together for a week and a half before running into more Fallen.

It was the third spaceport they had checked. Selene was picking her way over the rubble of an airstirp, in the shadow of a dilapidated hangar.

The peaceful blue circle in the lower left corner of her hud flashed a triangle of red.

“Movement.” Her ghost spoke it’s first words since the sun rose.They had run out of conversation a long time ago.

“Bad?” She asked.

“Bad.” A confirmation. “Okay. Here’s what we do. Get against the wall of that building, don’t stay out here in the open.”

Selene moved without a word, pressing her shoulder against the towering bay doors. She lifted her rifle.

“Brace it on your shoulder. Good. Move your hand forward a bit. Yes there. Good.” Coach lived up to Selene’s nickname better than either of them cared to admit.

“Walk along the wall. They have to be just around the corner. Lower the rifle a bit, take that left hand off now. You’re going to throw a grenade first, scatter them, do some damage too, hopefully kill a few of them. Yes, right there on your belt, get ready to grab it. Get closer.” Selene was fully alert, her mind processing faster than ever. Every microfiber in her body was ready to move on command. Her finger itched at the trigger. Don’t do it, don’t make noise, don’t mess this up.

She reached the building’s corner. Her motion tracker was a glowing red semi-circle.

“Ready?” Selene made no movement besides a slow, deliberate nod. “Okay. Now.”

She ducked around the building and hurled the pulsing violet orb from her hip. To her dismay it arced over most of the Fallen.

“Back around the building! Take cover!” She complied without a thought, slamming her back into the metal as the grenade went off, dreg screams following. Some of them had been hit by the scattering sparks at least.

“Two vandals, two shanks, four dregs.” Coach rattled off what they had seen. Selene hadn’t noticed half of them, she had been so focused on a simple toss. No time to check to see what had lived. If she was lucky at least one of the enemies would be dead.

“Get ready, they’re going to come for you now. Rifle up, left hand forward. More! Good. Brace on the wall, aim down sights, aim higher! There! Get ready.”

A vandal rounded the corner first.

Selene did not hesitate.

The rifle was louder than she had expected. The recoil was less. She clutched it with a death grip anyway. She counted fourteen rapid shots before Coach shouted to stop. The vandal was on the ground.

“Save ammo for the next one, you don’t have practice reloading.”

Half a clip gone, and more enemies still. She could see the motion.

A dreg appeared in her sights. She held the trigger down for four shots. The dreg stumbled but still raised it’s gun. Another burst of three shots. It died.

A shank skidded around the corner. The gun didn’t fire. Terror triggered programmed instincts. She leapt to the side as it fired on her.

“Use your palm!” She complied. The machine whirred and spun sideways, crashing into a second shank.

But now she had no weapon, her grenade was still charging itself with light, and she still and motion on her tracker.

“What do I do?” Selene didn’t understand the feeling she was getting, didn’t understand the paralysis that was coming over her

“Don’t give up.” her ghost spoke, raising it’s vocal volume over the war cry of the other vandal. “Just keep hitting them, they’ll go down.”

Damn her to hell if she was going to give up. How dare it even insinuate that!? The helplessness, despair (yes, that’s what it had been, she was ashamed to even admit that) it was gone, all gone. She dropped the rifle to the ground and prepared another force palm, feeling new energy behind it.

“They aren’t coming to you, rush them.” Coach urged. “You have the strength, do it, you can.”

She rounded the corner, shoving her hand into a dreg’s face before it could pull the trigger on the gun pointed at her head. It became purple, dissolved into the light of her hand. Selene took the fraction of a second to marvel at it. She had literally pulled the life from every atom of it’s body.

It thrilled her.

Still more movement. The last vandal. It raised it’s blades as they always did, roared again, as they always did.

She smiled. She was not afraid.

Her palm did not glow again, but the energy was still there as she pushed space and matter, forcing the blow into the vandal’s skull. It fell.

Her blue circle was blue again. No more red triangles.

She retrieved the rifle. Fumbled with the reload. Resolved to practice the next time she took a break from walking.

“There’s nothing here, is there?” She crankily asked her ghost, indicating the airfield and surrounding buildings.

“No. Scans show nothing.”

“Then let’s just get to that damn cosmos dome thing. Sounded like our best bet anyway.”

“It probably is.” Coach consented, sounding a little dejected. “I just thought we’d try.”

“Well we did. And it sucked.” She spat the words but regretted the tone. She did not apologize but personally resolved to not be so harsh to Coach. They had found the gun after all.

“Lets just get somewhere safe.” She requested. “ASAP.”

“Yes.” Her guide agreed, flashing a waypoint. “Lets.”


	3. Guardian

There was something majestic about the wall. She had noticed the odd shapes on the horizon as the dawn broke. Then the sun rose behind her and bathed the valley floor in light. It crept forward and climbed as it reached the crumbling concrete. It turned the weathered structure to gold for a while, a golden line that curved across the plain. As she got closer it’s beauty faded, the cracks and imperfections showing more vividly in the shadows cast by the sun. But the solidity of it remained, the pride. This monstrosity still stood, despite breaches and cracks. It was a relic of the past, and you could feel it.

“If our city had one of those, we might have survived the Fallen.” She mused, only half wishing it had been so.

“Perhaps, but Skiffs can fly over walls, and Devil Walkers can tear them down.” Coach reasoned. “If the Fallen want to take something, they do. The best we can do is take it back.”

“Can they take the City?” Selene asked, dreading the answer.

“No.” He replied, so self-assured, she noticed. “The Traveler protects it.”

They left the conversation at that.

It wasn’t till mid-morning she realized the wall was a tombstone too.

Cars, thousands of them, crammed together on what must have once been roads. Bones speckled the tall grasses. The vehicles were rusted, so far that their roofs caved and their hoods crumbled. In some places there were still shards of glass from windows broken hundreds of years ago.

The train of death went on for miles. Selene followed it, unable to walk away from the scene. She was beginning to see a pattern of desperation. Some of the skeletons were still in the cars but more of them, much more of them were sprawled in the grasses and upon the asphalt rubble. Everything faced the wall, reached for the wall. The wall was their last hope, and they had not made it.

She approached it at last. The point where all the cars, all the bodies, everything was pointing her. The cars stopped about a hundred yards from the wall. The bodies stopped soon after. There was just open concrete, pockmarked by weeds and puddles.

In the wall was a doorway, standard, three feet wide and seven feet high. It’s door hung open on loose, rusted hinges. It beckoned to her and it beckoned to the ghosts of all the dead she had passed.

Not one of them had made it. She looked back over the snaking line of rust. Thousands failed getting here, she had made it without much of a fuss. It almost felt like she was disgracing them if she went through it herself. Almost.

She looked up at the wall before her, followed it up and up to it’s peak. It was irregular there, parts crumbling where the weather had taken it’s toll. It left strange angles and protrusions. Some of them started to form shapes in Selene’s mind.

No. Stop. That wasn’t rubble, that was a person. It was too angular, too perfect to be concrete and erosion.

She backed up, keeping her eye on the oddity, getting a better line of sight. Yes it was something humanoid, but built too big, too boxy, to be a human. They were armored heavily, holding something, probably a rifle, leisurely in one hand. Motion at their waist, a little cloth moved in the breeze. Definitely not a rock, definitely a friend.

Definitely looking at her.

Selene raised a hand in a casual salute. The figure on the wall raised an arm in reply and waved back, a subtle kind, just a flick of the wrist. Selene waited, unsure of what to do next. Did she go up, did she wave the other down?

She didn’t have to decide. The other took a step forward and dropped from the wall. An instant before they hit the ground there was a click of mechanics, a woosh of air and light from the base of their boots. Their downward momentum was canceled and they hovered a split second before landing softly a few yards in front of Selene.

“Hi.” It spoke- she spoke- for the voice was feminine, a shock to Selene. Nothing about the person before her had said female. She was all armor, winged shoulderplates and stiff greaves and blades along the plates on the front of their thighs. Her helmet was small and fitted and the visor smooth, with little purple lights twinkling in mesmerizing circle patterns.There was a ruff of fur at her neck, somewhat out of place amidst the grey steel covering her chest. The fluttering fabric Selene had noticed before was tattered at the ends and splashed with blood.

Selene felt infinitely underdressed.

“Hey.” She said back, feeling somewhat lame. “You’re a Guardian?”

The armored woman’s shoulders softened. “I am. And so are you, Warlock. Welcome to the Cosmodrome.” There was a gentle smile in her voice, a kindness Selene had never felt directed at her before.

She glanced away from it back at the trail of cars. “Glad to be here. Finally.”

The other guardian paused and looked between her and the cars. “Were you… were you one of them?” She asked delicately.

She was confused for a moment, then remembered the skeletons, remembered revival and how she had become a Guardian.

“Oh.” Selene said. “Oh no, no. It’s just been a very long walk.”

“Oh.” The woman echoed. There was something unspoken there, Selene was surprised she sensed it without seeing the other’s throat lights.

“Were you?” She asked. The armored Guardian paused, but finally answered.

“Yes. Yes I was. A very long time ago.” She squared herself up and moved on, without physically moving at all. “Well, I suppose you need to get to the City.”

“Yes.” Selene admitted.”I haven’t-” She was interrupted by an echoing call drifting across the valley. With barely a clatter, the other woman was in between Selene and the wilderness, rifle raised and aimed.

“Fallen.” She said simply, with an air of distaste. “Scout, how far off are they?”

A ghost not unlike Selene’s appeared beside her, swiveling it’s geometry around it’s eye.

“A mile, maybe closer.” It’s Guardian lowered her rifle.

“Okay. Call the ship, let’s just get her out of here now. Before they get here.” The ghost nodded and vanished. She turned to Selene.

“Usually it’s courtesy to offer others a ride when heading back to the city, but I don’t think you have much of a choice.” Her tone was teasing. Selene could almost see the bubbling blink of her throat lights.

She shrugged. “I suppose not.”

Above them, the whirring of drives. Selene glanced up as a silvery jumpship descended over the two of them.

“Don’t move too much.” The woman advised, stepping closer to Selene. “Transmatting… now.”

There was a slight tingling in her circuits and everything went white. When her optics rebooted she was inside the ship, staring at the back of the pilot’s chair. Her new friend was already sitting down, punching data into the onboard computer.

“Take us home Scout.” She requested, and the ship hummed, drives engaging and sending them off over Russia, leaving the great wall of the Cosmodrome behind.

“Music?” The voice of her Ghost came over the ship’s audio. He didn’t wait for an answer, but started up a pop song from the early twenty-second century.

“Thank you! You’re a dear Scout. You know what I like.” She glanced back at Selene. “Take some time to rest, it’ll be a couple hours before we get to the City. If you prefer quiet, there’s a room in the back.”

“It’s fine.” Selene assured her, sitting down against the back wall. “It’s not bad stuff.” The music was unfamiliar but had the same tones of what she had liked back in her city. Maybe it was a predecessor, an inspiration to the artists whose work had survived the collapse in little towns and boroughs.

The cockpit descended into a one-sided awkward silence. The woman was contentedly bobbing her head to the music. Only Selene appeared bothered by break.

“I am Sentinel-12. Selene.” She said, suddenly, without prompting. She felt her cheek lights flushing slightly and blessed the helmet on her head for the first time. Being social was never one of her strengths, but the sudden realization that this woman was probably the only person on the planet that she knew hit her and it hit hard.

Her pilot glanced back at her. “Selene.” She spoke the name and nodded a few times, as if it felt right to her. “Auburn.”

It took Selene a moment to recognize the other woman had given her a name in return. “Just Auburn?” There were no numbers after the word, and it didn’t feel like an exo name.

“Yes. Just Auburn.” A pause. “There was… more. Once.” She admitted. “But we all have ways of coping with our first rez. Mine just involved leaving behind what I could.”

“Oh.” She could respect that. It was the same thing she did. She voiced it. “I understand, I think.”

Auburn made a “Mhm” sound that seemed a bit like a laugh. She was startlingly organic, but perhaps that was something that evolved from wearing helmets all the time.

She still hadn’t turned back to face the ship’s controls. Selene assumed it could operate on it’s own, or perhaps Auburn’s ghost was handling it.

“Oh!” The Guardian moved suddenly, as if waking from a daze. She pressed her thumbs at the seals of her helmet. “Safe zone, I guess I can take this stupid thing off now.” It was an affectionate comment, ‘stupid’ sounding more like 'beloved’ in its utterance.

The sight of her face hit Selene in the gut. She was in no way the image of an exo comrade she had formulated in her mind. Primarily because Auburn was, in fact, very human indeed. Pale faced with a bright smile, and hair the color of her name. The only thing remotely artificial about her was the bright blue color of her eyes.

Coach appeared, directly in front of Selene, flashing caution, and affection rapidly.

“What do you want?” She muttered crossly.

“Just be nice.” It whispered. Opportunity. Give.

Selene whirred in annoyance. “I’ll be nice when they are.”

“Stop generalizing! I put up with you the whole walk here, but I swear now that you’ve met an actual other being you are going to be personable.”

Selene struck out an arm and swatted at her ghost. The physical response shocked it into inaction, it’s pieces spinning in jerking motions back and forth around it’s core. It looked like it was spooling up for an argument.

She stood. “I think I will go in the back thanks.” Thanks? Why had she thanked a human? She saw her -it- staring wide eyed at the both of them. Organic shock and discomfort was all over her face.

With a disgruntled huff, Selene palmed the door panel and stepped through. The door sealed behind her and she slid down the bulkhead to the floor.

Coach appeared inside the room as well in a shower of sparks. “If you thought you could leave me on the other side of some stupid door, you got another thing coming missy…”

She was tired suddenly, so tired. She tuned the rambling Ghost out and slowed nonessential processes, settling down to dump her cache and think over what kind of a mess she’d gotten herself into.

Would it perhaps have been better to stay dead?


End file.
